Nightwing: New Year's Eve
by StockersBlahBlah
Summary: Based within my own AU Arkham-verse, based on Catwoman's alternate ending. Experimenting with a new writing structure. Nightwing's in trouble, it's New Year's Eve in Arkham City, and the vigilante has got himself caught up in something game-changing. Who is the mysterious voice? What is real, and what is fake? Will he survive to see dawn? R&R please guys!


_XXXXXXXX ##XX  
XXCXXBXX #0XX  
DXcXXbXX 30XX  
DeceXbeX 30XH  
DeceMbeX 30Th_  
**December 30****th****, Park Row, Arkham City, Gotham.**

Heat seared into his suit as he tumbled through the floors of the old hotel, through fire, brambles and other such plants. He grunted out as he came to rest on the watery floor, hesitating slightly before drawing his arms up to rub his head, wiping soot from his cheek. He groaned and spat blood into the freezing, dirty water that pooled on the floor. He pushed himself up, biceps and triceps weak under hours of strain and torture, he gritted his teeth and groaned again, raising his head and looking around this new level.

"_Still alive?_" an eerily cheerful, but grating, voice asked, with a pitch just a little too high to be...comforting, to be _natural_. Nightwing groaned some more, and pushed himself to his feet, wavering slightly, bringing his hands up to his throbbing head, and looking around again, for the source of this voice, which had been taunting him all night. "_Tsk tsk tsk, we shall have to do something about that...won't we?_" the voice said, gleefully.

Nightwing went into a weak, but offensive stance, and dove out of the way of a green blur. A loud crack issued through the room as another blur headed towards him. He rolled through the water as the soft sploosh of a branch hitting the floor filled his ears. He raised his arm and fired his last electric dart, flicking it into a thick..._vein_ looking thing, on the tree's branch.  
There was a scream, and the branch tensed and writhed, lashing out left and right like a severed spider's leg. It hit Nightwing in the chest, and the hero was sent reeling, slamming into a tiled wall and cracking some as he collapsed to his knees. He heard one of his eskrima sticks shatter.  
Then the ground was snatched from under him. No. Wait. _He_ was snatched off the ground, felt the tight vine curl around his ankle and wrench him through the hole in the ceiling that he'd just tumbled through.

Then the vine was gone...and he was _flying_. For a sick, horrifying, eternity-lasting second...he was weightless, the air passed through his fingers and held his hair in a kind of stasis, then, almost in slow motion...as if...finger by _finger_ he felt gravity begin to pull on him...And he wished his eyes hadn't just snapped open.  
Then he hit the floor, hard, cracking some ribs and breaking a couple of fingers. He roared out, and rolled with the force, landing on his side. He coughed out blood onto the torn carpet beneath him, and heard the soft landings of footfalls around him. A woman, he assumed; light on her feet, graceful with movements...dancing?

"Poor, little bird," she purred, her voice layered, mesmeric, as if many voices were talking at once.  
Nightwing swallowed. He _recognised_ that voice, but...no...it couldn't be. It must be concussion, just his beaten and pain-addled mind playing tricks on him.  
Then his eyes focussed and her beautiful features were picked out to him, line-by-delicate-line and every inch of soft...smooth..._flowin red hair_ stopped buzzing and became whole again.  
"_Oracle...?_" Nightwing growled through his pain.  
The girl giggled and pushed him onto his back, straddling him slowly. "Don't tell me you've forgotten about me?" she purred, trailing her fingers across his chest, pressing against his broken ribs and making him cry out in pain.

"_Oh? My dear..._" that voice again. It jarred within Nightwing's ears and sent a chill up his spine. _NO!_ "_Time to give our visitor another vaccination_."  
Nightwing struggled weakly as a door opened and light streamed into the flower-lined chamber. He coughed out a weak protest, and tried to push the beautiful woman off him. It couldn't have been...her, no...could it? That all felt so _real_...  
"B-Barbara?"$ he croaked, too quiet to be heard as something plunged into the soft tissue at the base of his neck, and a warm liquid pumped into his system...


End file.
